


What Visions I Have Seen

by oceanofdarkness



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Challenge Response, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-18
Updated: 2012-08-18
Packaged: 2017-11-12 09:39:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/489446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceanofdarkness/pseuds/oceanofdarkness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle struggles with reality in the Queen's dungeon.<br/>ficlet response to angst challenge on tumblr</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Visions I Have Seen

**Author's Note:**

> Possible triggers... abuse, non-con alluded to.

 

It was a glamour.

It was just a glamour.

She had to keep reminding herself. 

She had no idea if it was the queen herself or someone she had sent to do her bidding, but she suspected the woman wouldn’t want to hear of her torture after the fact when she could inflict so much pain herself and drink in the suffering first hand.

She had no idea how long she had been in this tiny, dark room in the bowels of the queen’s castle, but it felt like an eternity. She had been taken by the queen’s men as she left the pub. She recognized their armor, but had seen little else. They’d covered her head with a black hood so she couldn’t see them or where they were taking her, and had not removed the thing until she was thrown into this cell. There were no windows, no source of light at all. She had no way to mark the passage of time, not even waking and sleeping. She was not allowed to sleep for long without a visit from her tormentor.

The first time she thought he’d come to save her. That horrible rush of hope had almost broken her when she realized what was happening. It wasn’t him, even though the form was his, the voice. Those visits were the only time she wasn’t left in complete darkness, though she had come to crave the dark, just as she longed for a respite from the attentions of her captor.

Her punishment for whatever imagined crimes she had committed was unspeakably cruel. Her jailer wore the form of her love each time. It was her love who tortured her, her love who beat her, her love who took her mercilessly against the cold stone and mocked her devotion to him. 

It was worst when he was kind. He would speak softly to her, touch her so gently, and assure her that this time it was real. He was here to take her away from this inky hell, to bring her home. He would gather her up in his arms and cradle her against his chest while she curled into him and allowed herself to believe the lie for a precious few moments until the mocking cruelty returned. She knew better than to give into it, knew it was those tiny flickers of hope that would eventually be her undoing. She couldn’t seem to resist the lure, though, that fleeting fantasy of salvation.

Would she recognize him if he truly did come for her? She’d thought so once, fancied that she would feel the specific character of  _his_  magic, but she no longer believed it. It was only a glamour, but it seemed  _so horribly_  real. How could she ever trust herself to know the difference?

  



End file.
